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[2024] Thorpe Park: Hyperia - Mack Hypercoaster

Nothing to say the ride was unsafe at any time. Could be as simple as they didn't want it to fail and leave a train of people and a massive queue in the lurch. Looks better they announced it closed rather than hope it lasts until the new part arrives and it doesn't.
 
We joke about it, but customers are saying 'the ride went up too quickly, they should have taken their time' and the park's official account are responding 'Unsafe? There's nothing unsafe about this ride! This ride is perfectly safe!'...

It's just incredibly silly and frankly amateurish. 'Don't bring up the safety of your currently unavailable rollercoaster unless absolutely necessary and relevant' should be Theme Park Media 101 by now.

Merlin as a whole needs someone experienced, sharp and (crucially) great at comms to proofread all this stuff. It's staggering that they don't have someone like that already.
 
ThemeParkAddict said:
We joke about it, but customers are saying 'the ride went up too quickly, they should have taken their time' and the park's official account are responding 'Unsafe? There's nothing unsafe about this ride! This ride is perfectly safe!'...

It's just incredibly silly and frankly amateurish. 'Don't bring up the safety of your currently unavailable rollercoaster unless absolutely necessary and relevant' should be Theme Park Media 101 by now.

Merlin as a whole needs someone experienced, sharp and (crucially) great at comms to proofread all this stuff. It's staggering that they don't have someone like that already.
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Basically what I said before.

Was always going to happen, people were going to start questioning why it was able to run with customers for a full day if whatever has gone wrong is so severe as to keep it shut for over 2 weeks. Inevitably the question will be, was it safe, did whatever has caused it to go down happen whilst people were riding it etc.

I’m sure it was perfectly safe and that the relevant safety systems would prevent the train from even leaving the station if there was any actual danger but again, people don’t know this and will answer the questions themselves if nobody does it for them.
 
rob666 said:
Citation required.
Who says so?
No mention of any perceived risk to customers, has there?
Unless someone actually knows better?
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Exactly the point, it is unlikely they will now come out and say it wasn’t safe to ride on that first day, even if it wasn’t.

Had there had been some sort of incident then an enquiry would have explained all (the smiler). We will never know.
 
But there wasn't an incident, because proper preparation, procedures and policies were in place.
Hence a lot of thoosie vapours, but little else.
These things happen, a lot.
Skytrack comes to mind for a terminal one.
 
Josh555 said:
Basically what I said before.

Was always going to happen, people were going to start questioning why it was able to run with customers for a full day if whatever has gone wrong is so severe as to keep it shut for over 2 weeks. Inevitably the question will be, was it safe, did whatever has caused it to go down happen whilst people were riding it etc.

I’m sure it was perfectly safe and that the relevant safety systems would prevent the train from even leaving the station if there was any actual danger but again, people don’t know this and will answer the questions themselves if nobody does it for them.
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In the words of the late Mr Pratchett, or even Mark Twain before him, "a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on".

Get ahead of the rumour mill and you don't have this issue.
 
dave___ said:
In the words of the late Mr Pratchett, or even Mark Twain before him, "a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on".

Get ahead of the rumour mill and you don't have this issue.
Click to expand...
Ahem *Sir* Terry
But always nice to see a bit of Discworld in the wild.

Back on track, trip tomorrow cancelled. Glad they said something in plenty of time to avoid the early wake up and dash down the M4. Here’s hoping it’s open for the meet 🤞
 
One of the interesting things that has come out of this, is the number of people asking whether it’s safe. It’s not an unreasonable question. Either a ride opens or it doesn’t. Either it gets the safety doc or it doesn’t. Either you ride it or you don’t.

It’s also a more complicated question. Without wanting to sound pedantic you could argue that no activity is completely risk free, but hopefully in a theme park the risk levels are very low, and probably much lower than in other thrill seeking scenarios. Risk is normally a combination of how likely something is to go wrong and the severity/consequence if it does go wrong. Risk is on a continuum, so it's not simply that there is or isn't a risk, but how big is the risk.

In ride design they sometimes use a failure modes and effects analysis which also looks at how quickly you can detect a failed component.

There are recognised ways of risk assessing things, but there is of course some subjectivity in what does or doesn’t count as an acceptable level of risk.

Given Merlin’s track record and Mack’s track record, it seems reasonable to have some optimism in what they’re doing. Mack does have a reputation for very good engineering, and Merlin’s safety record is good relative to the number of people visiting their parks. Even if Hyperia had a higher risk level than other coasters in the park, the risk level could still be very low.

At the same time, complacency’s not ideal either, and some of the questions people are asking are reasonable, even if we’re never going to get answers to them. For example, if a non-safety critical component fails, there might not appear to be any risk, but if it failed due to an issue in how it was transported from the factory, this same issue could have affected a safety critical component. If an issue with a non-safety critical part was caused by insufficient testing, were the safety critical parts tested adequately?

I don’t think we’ll ever get answers to these things, but hopefully behind the scenes these are the questions that are being asked and investigated. The industry does have a very good track record on safety, but that’s because people ask these kinds of questions, and err on the side of caution, rather than because people assume that everything will be fine. If something fails after one day of operation, it's important to investigate what caused the failure, and to get as close as you can to the root cause.

We probably won't ever know what investigations they are or aren't doing, which is why there's so much speculation and no one can answer it definitively.
 
being realistic, there is no safety problem, with hyperia, as I have seen with a few posts, the worst thing that may happen is the chain snapping/falling in which case the ARB's kick in on the train rand everyone is evacuated from the lift hill, which i guess is a slightly higher risk as people may slip, but it isn't high and happens from time to time, the issue is probably mostly maitanence and preventing possible damage to other components.

and the people asking if it had enough time testing? it did, some problems can creep up within days of testing, others within months, others within years, it is one of the reasons all the rides go through a pre start check before opening to ensure safety critical systems are fine and working.
 
This is not confirmed by any means, but it is being suggested by Dean on X that Thorpe Park are aiming for a reopening on Tuesday 11th June:

From: https://x.com/dean8001/status/1799050699340489155?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1799050699340489155%7Ctwgr%5E83c9f5f1fe6b0658d7210bb33174adbf2d227c32%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum.maniahub.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2Fdean8001%2Fstatus%2F1799050699340489155

It really would be absolutely typical if it did reopen on the 11th… seeing as I’m going on the 10th!

If this ends up being the case, I can’t believe I’ll have missed it by 1 day… that really is just my luck!

Now I’m just desperately hoping that the park are simply covering themselves, and the 11th June is the latest date they currently expect it to reopen…
 
For what it's worth, Hyperia apparently just tested, according to a person who's been providing updates on the situation throughout the day:
 
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